KatoKid

Happy hunting....like everything else its gone through the roof!

Flashy short motor sold.....now flashy intake system and head. Whats the direction you are headed Lurcho's?

Cool. As a guide, engineers look for a minimum of half inch (13mm) clearance in these sort of areas.

Intrigued as to why you need this measurement?

Little, but important steps.....I've got a working clutch. I had to find somewhere to mount the remote reservoir for the under dash BMW clutch master cylinder. Normally I would wack a nutsert in the firewall but my priority all through the build has been to make this all reversible back to standard with the minimum of effort so I used the underside of the bonnet height adjustment thingy to hang it from. Everyone reckons the BMW clutch hydraulics are a bitch to bleed so knowing this I didn't even attempt a normal top down bleed process and used a syringe to push fluid from the slave up to the top.....and it worked brilliantly, pedal feels good and clutch is releasing a little over half way through the pedal stroke. Happy days as I wasn't sure if the way I had adapted the BMW hydraulics would provide enough travel.

Surely #lstheworld

I sent 240Z fronts and 260Z rears to MCA, as far as they are concerned there is no difference as they just machine up different diameter bottom tubes as required to be welded to the original tubes.

Gold star to Jeff!!! When I was cleaning the calipers for final assembly I noticed a small L and R cast into the calipers, normally the location of the bleeder nipple denotes which side the calipers would go on and I had assumed that nipples up top and in the normal location behind the strut was correct.....but no. The calipers have leading and trailing pistons, leading being slightly different in their position (further back from the leading edge of the pad) so I had to swap the struts from side to side which re positioned the calipers so direction of rotation was correct. Doesn't cause any issues or interference so all good!

Front suspension is done with all new bushes and ball joints. If you ever have front struts modified by MCA or others remember to remove the front brake hose bracket before you send them away and then you will have to weld them back on. Apart from the fact that they are R33 brakes can anyone pick whats odd/different about the brakes in these shots.....gold star for the first person who gets it right!

Thanks Peter...again. I've never seen springs in Bunnings so will go and check it out.

Had a big win today thanks to Gordo.... I have 16x8 wheels that I really love and intend to run on this car but it wont get through engineering with wheels this width so I need to go down to 7 inch wide and hope the engineer will be OK with them as technically they are border line according to NCOP. 16x7 inch wheels are not easy to find but 15x7 are plentiful so I was on the hunt for some 15x7 rims, problem is I wasn't sure my big brake conversion would fit under 15 inch wheels. Gordo came to the rescue and said I could try his spare set and I was very relieved to find they fit.....about 10-15mm clearance diameter wise and the 2-3mm clearance on the calipers which was the big potential issue but which will also vary considerably from wheel to wheel design. Thanks Gordo!

Hi all. I'm in need of this spring that supports the hand brake cable on a 240Z (don't know if its the same for 260Z and 2+2). The spring hangs from the high point of the body above the diff and clips on to the hand brake cable to support it and keep it from falling onto the driveshafts. My car only had one on it when I got it. Looks like this: Melbourne hopefully! Thanks. David

What I expected to be a right royal pain the ass actually turned out to be one of the easiest parts of the build......the R31 handbrake. I need to preface this by saying that I bought a new reproduction handbrake cable from eBay a while ago as my original cable was totally seized and couldn't be resurrected and the reproduction handbrake cable (I think) was slightly different in dimensions than the original. I had already made the changes to the caliper bracket a few posts back so the calipers just bolted on and the cable attached perfectly to the cable bracket on the caliper without modification. All the previous posts I had read on this conversion required shortening of this cable bracket on the caliper.....not sure why. I installed and adjusted out all the free-play under the tunnel and tried the handbrake, it was clear I had the same problem as everyone else.....the handbrake went all the way through its travel and was like pulling on a rubber band and still didn't lock the rear discs. It was pretty obvious that the issue was that the fulcrum point where the cable attaches was too close to the pivot point meaning there was insufficient travel. I mocked up a bolt on bracket to confirm how much I had to move the fulcrum point and how much travel was required, tried it out and was pleasantly surprised that the handbrake worked really well with 6 clicks of movement to provide good locking on of the discs and seven clicks if I really reefed on it,,,,and it also felt right with none of the elasticity of before without requiring too much pressure for adequate locking. I welded on the proper fulcrum extension and gave it two holes for adjustment and rechecked how it works but the furthermost hole clearly works best. With the caliper brackets sitting in the upwards rotated position you can use the original Skyline rubber hose....but you require a bubble flare on the hard line end, not the original double inverted type. You can buy an adapter if you want http://www.dormanproducts.com/p-46703-788-522.aspx?origin=keyword but I'm going to get custom braided hoses which will have the correct ends on it. I cant budge the rear disc using a long breaker bar but will reserve final judgement on this conversion when I can actually drive the car. I still need to secure the cables so they don't rub on the CV shafts but this wont be hard. The only downside I can see is the need to rotate the caliper to bleed properly but don't think it will be an issue. All parts need to go to for plating now and then on to the front suspension. Cheers

+1 for Enzed

Making some significant headway now. Shifter and handbrake assembly's are in: Moustache bar and diff: Rear suspension with new spindle pins and OEM bushes (plenty of anti size and no squeak rubber grease Peter Allen): Rear hubs and brakes are temporarily installed as I need to be sure I can get the dreaded R31 handbrake to work satisfactorily ....which I think I have....more to come in the next post!

Truth is PB that the problem was caused by the poor quality non genuine fuel module and components.....but trickery is still trickery!

Thanks guys. SW set up won't fit due to the way I've modified the cross-member to run the exhaust. I will see how it goes and if needs be make some changes within the constraints I have to work with, the Energy Suspension mount is a captive type so cant separate. Cheers

I'm kinda committed with this set up as I need to control pinion angle due to BMW guibo joint drive train angularity thingy. Whats the SW set up?

Its been a couple of frustrating weeks......hot, and my shed is like an oven....plus sealing and electrical gremlins. When I first started the engine in the car everything was fine except the fuel gauge was doing weird things and certainly not reading correctly. I had calibrated the sender before the dash even went into the car and was confident this was correct so I started to dig into it but couldn't find any issues. I thought it was a problem with the sender in the tank so I removed the tank and probably just as well as the supposed nitrile rubber gasket I had made for the fuel module was being eaten by the fuel. All the research I did and a few phone calls said that nitrile was the correct choice but it certainly wasn't working for me! I bought another piece of nitrile from another suppler but it looked and felt exactly the same as the original piece I used to make the gasket so I decided to use rubberized cork which is a more traditional material. The cork looks and feels really robust but I'm still not convinced so I'm doing my own shed durability testing to try and confirm the best material. I checked the sender on the fuel module and all looked good. When I tried to re-calibrate I realized something was wrong and when I checked the gauge I found the earth point I had used was dodgy....so I pulled the tank for no reason but lucky I had anyway! I put everything back together and ran the engine to check for leaks, all was good for a few minutes and then the engine stopped....uh oh... this isn't good. Initial investigations said the fuel pump wasn't working. The pump is controlled by the ECU and it seemed to be getting power when required but wasn't working all the time, it would run for a few seconds and then stop and when I recycled the ignition it would run again and then stop once it had built some pressure....very weird. I checked my wiring harness and earths and everything seemed in order and tried running external power full time to eliminate ECU issues but still no luck. My trusty multimeter told me the fuel pump was going open circuit when it stopped had continuity at other times, I hadn't touched the fuel pump or wiring when I was checking the sender but something wasn't right ...so time to pull the tank again! Cutting a very long story short..... where the pump earth wire connects inside the fuel module had a loose and poor connection and I could see where it had been arcing which had made the connection progressively worse. The pump would run but as soon as it built some pressure and started to draw more amps it would stop due to the poor connection. I cleaned this up and put some more tension on the connector and all was good.....much relief to have clearly identified the problem as I was worried I would put it back together and it would run fine but without really identifying the issue......only for it to rear its head and some time a long way from home! Fugging electrickery. On to some good news....all of my suspension bushes arrived from zcarsource.com. I went with rubber instead of urethane (cos not racecar) and also bought ball joints, spindle pins and cotter pins. The front sway bay pivots and mustache bar bushes ended up being urethane which I was a bit annoyed about but wont use the mustache bar bushes anyway, everything else was genuine Nissan except the ball joints. Time to bolt the diff in but it needed a good clean and repaint beforehand ......its a R200 3.7 with a Kaaz two way LSD and the front mount for the RT mount is on as well. The factory ZF 5 speed I'm running is not an overdrive 4.20 (1), 2.49 (2), 1.66 (3), 1.24 (4), 1.00 (5) with 5th gear being 1:1 the acceleration should be...um....swiftish, especially considering the donor car had a 3.15:1 final drive. It might be a bit frantic and I could be be looking for a taller diff ratio eventually but its got a 7,500 rpm red line so I may as well use it

Ok....the old carby ones? I assume the V8 desire combined with NCOP restrictions drove this choice?

Boom!!! Winters?

So funny Mossy, I rode this route yesterday in preparation for 3 Peaks!! https://www.strava.com/activities/858946370

Current Hemi I assume, not old 392 or 426 based Hemi?

Still can't get over how good this car is!

Thanks EL. Bursons had rubberized cork but it was a big roll and $50 so went with the Supercrap stuff although I'm highly suspicious of the quality of anything they sell. Feels robust enough but I will also run some side by side tests with another nitrile rubber I sourced today from Powell Industrial (who took over Purple Pig).